I received an invitation today from Merchant Circle (MC) to participate in an online survey and in exchange for my input and time they would give me an annual subscription for FREE (valued at $50). I figured why not, I’ve never payed them anything for the services they have provided me. If you don’t know what Merchant Circle is, I suggest checking it out if you are a small business owner. In short MC is a mix of Yellow Pages meets Social Media.

So I began the survey and answered all the questions. I thought they were good questions that are obviously going to provide MC with some insight to what small businesses are looking for to help leverage themselves in the online marketplace. I got done with the survey, thought I was almost there and then BAM! they tried getting my Credit Card (CC) info. I stopped right there. I was like no way are you getting my CC info for a product that you just offered for FREE.

So I tried to find an email to email someone (from the email they sent me) of course it was a no-reply email. This seems to be an ongoing theme with web based companies and let me tell you Google is the worst of the bunch! Thats right Google! I like Google and all they are doing to revolutionize the world as we know it, but the customer service gets a big fat goose egg. Anyway, I found that MC had a forum to post to and what better than to have somewhere to provide feedback. So I did.

Wow! It didn’t take long for someone from MC to respond. Respect. Along with it came a windfall of other customers frustrated with the same process. My reasoning for this post isn’t to scold MC. In fact there quick response to my concern is. I think that given todays connected world things can go wonky very quickly, like they did for Comcast and Dell a while back. MC was all over this and that deserves some respect even if the process to get their FREE product was a bit mis-leading.

Another thing to note is the important role Social Media should play in your business structure and the way you interact with your customers online. This is not just a fad, and you better believe this stuff is going to be around for some time to come. Give yourself the gift of opportunity by being a part of the conversation, because now with the click of a button one bad statement can be heard around the world.

You can see the original post here.